Why we Invested: NatureMetrics
Leading a revolution in biodiversity data.
The clock is ticking on our race to build a shared future and live in harmony with mother nature by 2050.
75% of the insects on our earth are extinct, and more than one million species face the risk of extinction. In the EU alone, environmental pollution, unsustainable agricultural practices, and climate change are leading indicators of biodiversity loss. Only 23% of species and 16% of habitats are in good health. The biodiversity crisis becomes even more pronounced because humans are dependent on wildlife, plants, fisheries and more for food, medicines, and raw materials. Families, communities, nations, and future generations depend on biological diversity as the web of life on earth.
After COP26, Nature is centre stage. The world recognised the only chance of keeping the global temperature rise within 1.5 degrees is by protecting and restoring nature at an unprecedented scale. This is not a straightforward problem to solve.
Natural ecosystems are extremely complex and marked by multiple interactions, making biodiversity very difficult to measure in comparison to the single metric for carbon. Conventional biodiversity monitoring methods consist of individuals often sleeping overnight to manually monitor individual species. This approach lacks standardisation, can be dangerous, limits data comparability across space and time and only provides low-resolution data on a few taxonomic groups. Local stakeholders are not empowered and often do not contribute to knowledge. At the same time, businesses do not accurately account for their impact on biodiversity. This makes it difficult to set or report indicators and reach meaningful targets and goals and this is where NatureMetrics can help.
Ananda Impact Ventures is proud to announce our investment in NatureMetrics, a female-founded and female-led nature intelligence company in the UK. NatureMetrics brings a big-data approach to biodiversity, which can help track, quantify, and eventually predict the impact on nature. NatureMetrics has built a Database of Life on Earth to support companies in extractives, infrastructure, marine, agriculture and conservation industries to manage risks and impacts on the ecosystem. We truly believe in the company’s future as a nature intelligence company and are excited about the potential of their data feeding into biodiversity credits and risk modelling in the finance and insurance industries.
NatureMetrics provides field sampling kits so simple that kids have been able to take samples and get the same quality of data as trained scientists. Using environmental DNA (eDNA), a term used to describe DNA traces of a variety of organisms found in a habitat rather than a DNA from an individual organism, they can save months in time and 100x in cost. This democratises data collection and creates a scalable solution to monitoring the true biodiversity of life.
Our impact investment in NatureMetrics will consolidate its position as a global leader in molecular ecology and increase its capacity to launch new products for in-field monitoring solutions, expand the number of sectors they work in and fully exploit the data and software side of the business. The company have also expanded their footprint into North America with the recent acquisition of Canadian company Precision Biomonitoring.
The Google of Nature Data — the making of a platform for the most accurate biodiversity data to tackle biodiversity loss
NatureMetrics is the brainchild of ecologist Dr. Kat Bruce and the company is led by CEO Katie Critchlow (CEO). Across the team there is vast industry and academic experience in the green economy, biodiversity and sustainability strategy, tropical ecology, DNA metabarcoding and DNA-based monitoring. To learn more about Kat’s work please watch this video.
The story of how we came to meet NatureMetrics is one of long-term trusted relationships. Our principal, Zoe Peden, has known Kat Bruce, the founder since 2013 where they met at an accelerator when Zoe was building her own business. NatureMetrics approached Ananda and Zoe to help support them with the know-how and resources to build the data side of the business. Ananda co-led a £12m Series A+ alongside 2150, SWEN Blue Ocean, and BNPP with existing investor Systemiq following on.
We believe the future is very big and very bright for NatureMetrics. Nearly half of the world’s economic output US $44tn is moderately or highly dependent on nature. Nature loss therefore represents significant risk to corporate and financial stability. The market is responding to this through the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures and NatureMetrics is contributing to this. They are perfectly positioned for systemic impact.
The VC backed market to date has focussed heavily on carbon markets but carbon data and biodiversity data markets are two sides of the same coin. In a recent Credit Suisse report, 51% of investors mentioned ‘biodiversity’ as one of the most important topics for investors by 2030. An additional 71% of investors cite data availability and metrics as a key barrier to better investment decisions for biodiversity.
At Ananda Impact Ventures, we believe there is wide open space for the first biodiversity unicorn of the 2020s and we’re very excited to support NatureMetrics on this journey.
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We are always interested in innovative and game-changing solutions to tackle societal and environmental challenges. Are you an entrepreneur with a big vision and mission to create something extraordinary? Please get in touch!
